Teklė Šečkutė
Teklė works with flowers. She grew up in a garden, spent a few years as a graphic designer, then went back to what she'd been doing since she was small: arranging, touching, playing.
A garden kid
Hi!
Hi, my name is Teklė. And actually, I grew up in this garden.
What did the garden teach you?
My mum taught me a lot about flowers. I remember, since I was a kid I was very much mesmerised by them, and my parents used to laugh and say I should just get a job where I could just pick flowers and make money from it. So I suppose, in a way, this dream got fulfilled, in a different kind of setting.
What were you doing out there for all those hours?
Playing with flowers, mostly. Making fairy houses. Attaching petals to my nails and giving myself manicures. I have always been very much a garden kid. It was my way of finding a connection to nature, to plants.
Not a straight line
How did you get from there to working with flowers?
The path wasn't linear. First, I started out as a graphic designer and I was very interested in design, but I always felt something was missing.
What was missing?
I got really tired of working at my computer. My creativity felt put into a frame, into a little box, and I couldn't explore it the way I wanted. I had also missed working with my hands — touching things, textures, thinking about the materials I'm using. And since I already had that connection to plants, it felt natural to start doing something with flowers.
It's all a game
Did you train formally?
I didn't go to any school for it. It was always kind of an intuitive thing for me.
Does that ever worry you?
No, that's the fun part. I truly believe it's all just a game. Adults forget that we have to play games. It's not that serious sometimes. Letting yourself be a curious child gives you permission to fail, to find new things, to be odd and imperfect, and to find your own voice.
What did you know as a child that's easy to forget?
As a kid you didn't think, "what will people say?" You just thought, "what is fun?" That's the beauty of giving yourself permission to play.
Everything through the senses
Is that why you touch things you're not supposed to?
Even in a museum, I like touching things. I know it's a bit illegal, or frowned upon. But experiencing life through different senses. Seeing, touching, tasting, is a way to explore it like a child, and to find that connection to it.
The difficult ones
Is there anything you still find hard?
Yellow flowers. They're beautiful, but there's something a bit intense about them.
And roses? There's a stereotype that roses are for a very particular kind of woman.
I like them a lot, actually. There's such a big variety of them. Sometimes they're just a bit hard to work with, because they can be short.
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